SIHEUNG-SI, South Korea — It is otherwise such a high-tech, wired in, thoroughly modern country it seems inconceivable that there really could be a dog meat industry and slaughter going on here.

But it isn’t urban myth or, as the current lexicon would put it, fake news.

Enough South Koreans – certainly not all of them, not even most of them, but enough of them — still eat dog meat often enough that an estimated 2.5 million dogs are killed for food here every year.

The dogs are sold in markets and to dog meat restaurants – there are still a dozen in the Gangneung area, where the Olympic skating and hockey venues are located, alone — mostly as a peppery soup with purported healing and virility-enhancing qualities. This soup is particularly popular on the three hottest days of the summer, called “boknal”.

Young dogs in an enclosure on Thursday near the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics site.Humane Society International / Facebook

Humane Society International (HSI) estimates there are 17,000 so-called “dog meat farms” across the country.

The name is a misnomer.

Most aren’t farms in any recognizable way except that the dogs are purpose-raised for slaughter – and on some of the bigger operations, even kept like chickens in row upon row of cramped cages. Many farms aren’t even in rural areas.

For instance, what HSI calls Farm No. 11 – when permanently closed next month, it will be the eleventh farm the charity has shut down since January of 2015 — is in a dense part of Siheung-si, a city near Incheon International Airport.

The farm is just off a busy major road, in a ramshackle area of small industries and even residential buildings.

It looks nothing like a farm.

Sang-ki Kim is the owner of the business, though he just rents the land, and according to what he told HSI campaign manager Nara Kim (no relation), he ended up in the dog meat business accidentally.

Years ago, he got himself a pair of the Korean Jindo dogs he says he likes, and two led to four, and so on.

Then he started selling them as meat dogs.

He approached HSI for help in getting out of the business – the charity gives such farmers small start-up grants if they transition to a new industry, and Kim says he wants to grow mushrooms now in a different area — claiming he has the heart for it no longer.

Two of the dogs purpose raised for slaughter at a dog meat farm in South Korea.Humane Society International / Facebook

But as Nara Kim quietly noted on Tuesday, virtually all of the 87 adult dogs (there are puppies too) he keeps in these filthy cages visibly flinch at the sight of a human hand.

That reflex takes some harsh lessons, whether in man or beast, to develop: It seems clear that in addition to being near-starved, maltreated and neglected, most of these dogs also have been hit before.

Yet despite their fear and the grimness of their lives, most of the dogs are curious about their human visitors, easy to approach and, given the slightest encouragement, ridiculously trusting and friendly.

Virtually all of the adult dogs kept in the filthy cages visibly flinch at the sight of a human hand.Humane Society International / Facebook

Though just about every breed of dog is sold for meat in this country, there’s a popular perception that some dogs — the bigger breeds — are “meat dogs”, somehow different from and less worthy than small “pet dogs”.

Several cages here are filled with Korean Dosa Mastiffs, a naturally sweet and docile breed, if also heavily jowled and drooley.

With their black masks and loose skin, they look like giant bloodhounds.

They seem desperate for human touch, and stand as best they can in their crowded cages, enormous paws hanging over the tops or splayed in greeting against the bars.

There are also several cages filled with beautiful Golden retrievers, white Grand Pyrenees, Jindo mixes and smaller dogs too frightened to even move out from the backs of their cages.

Some of the dogs have open sores or wounds.

Canadian figure skater Meagan Duhamel with her dog Moo-tae in South Korea.EK Park/Free Korean Dogs

But as awful as the conditions are on dog farms like this, far worse are the mechanics of the slaughter that awaited them: Many dogs are electrocuted; some are hanged.

Then, after a mandatory 30-day quarantine, in groups of 10 or so, they’ll be flown to new and proper homes – this time, destination Canada. Anyone wanting to adopt one of them or support HSI’s work, can contact the group at info@hsicanada.ca.

They’ll be in Olympian company: Pairs skater Meagan Duhamel, part of Canada’s gold medal-winning team, adopted a little Beagle mix she calls Moo-tae when she was in Korea last year and is bringing one from No. 11 home after the Games.

She’s not sure she can keep this one – she and husband, Bruno Marcotte, live in a small condo with two dogs and a cat – but she’s going to lean on her parents to keep the new guy until the couple can get a bigger place.

“We can’t stop this industry one dog meat farm at a time,” Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of HSI Canada, said in an email interview this week.

It’s simply too big.

But the closures of farms like No. 11, she says, shine “a global spotlight on the dog meat trade” and the way HSI does it gives the Korean government “an economic model … to follow when it makes the decision to end the dog meat trade.”

Shortly after new South Korean President Moon Jae-in was elected, he adopted a little rescue dog called Tory.

Tory is the country’s first rescued First Dog and to those working against the dog meat trade, a symbol of hope.

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